A lot of homeless advocates are urging city officials to install restrooms on the streets of Los Angeles for vagrants. They say this will "fix" the increasing trash and odors that are taking over downtown, and other areas in Southern California.
But the city of Los Angeles has reportedly estimated that putting in mobile bathrooms can cost more than $300,000 every year. According to the Budget and Finance Committee, installing and running bathrooms in every homeless encampment in L.A. would add up to more than $57 million every year.
Is that really how much we want to pay for a homeless mobile bathroom?
“How many single-family homes could you build for that much money?” Councilman Paul Krekorian asked at a hearing at City Hall last month.
According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the homeless population is made up of more than 36,000 vagrants. Imagine how much it would cost to provide them all with bathrooms on the streets...
The Department of Public Works already installed 16 "pit stop" toilets around Los Angeles this spring, but the city is now starting to realize that a big part of the costs comes from staffing the bathrooms.
"Our No. 1 goal is to get people off the streets," Deputy Mayor Christina Miller, who oversees homelessness initiatives, said in a recent interview. "We want to make sure that's what we're spending the bulk of our energy on."
But if you keep building shelters and bathrooms on the streets, do you really think the homeless will be more inclined to leave? We don't think so...
Read the full report on the Los Angeles Times.